The broad band laser emission observed from organic dye lasers provides for a source of continuously tunable coherent radiation. Tuning of a dye laser was first accomplished in 1967 by Soffer and McFarland by replacing the back reflector of the optical resonant cavity with a rotatable diffraction grating. Since that time, other organic dye laser tuning techniques for producing narrow-band laser emission have been devised, most of which have been electromechanical in design.
The disadvantages in using any tuning system that has moving parts, such as a rotatable diffraction grating or electromechanical devices, is the limitation of the operational frequency range. The present invention is a tuning system having no moving parts. That is, tuning is accomplished by employing stationary components, which are an acousto-optical cell and a diffraction grating, and an optional angle multiplier. The laser beam diffraction is responsive to the radio frequency applied to the acousto-optical cell, and the light frequency reflected back into the system by the stationary diffraction grating is dependent on the angle of incidence of the diffracted beam with the grating.